Storyweb: Storytime For Grownups

This week on StoryWeb: Bernard Rose’s film Immortal Beloved. This episode is dedicated to Jim. Ever since I was a teenager trying to play Beethoven’s classic piano sonatas, I have loved the thundering, passionate, soaring thrill of his music. While I mostly succeeded in butchering “Sonata Pathétique” and “Sonata Appassionata,” I nevertheless became quite enamored of his Romantic-era compositions. But what of Ludwig van Beethoven, the man? Like most people, I knew that he had lost his hearing at some point in his life but that he had – unbelievably, inconceivably, almost miraculously – continued to compose music. And if the tempestuous chords of his compositions were any indication, he surely must have had a raging soul. How then, I wondered, did a breath-taking, awe-inspiring piece like “Ode to Joy” come to cap his final symphony? Bernard Rose’s 1994 biopic, Immortal Beloved, offers some insights. The film focuses a good deal of attention on Beethoven’s secret romance, the unnamed woman whom Beethoven addres